In the Batcave, Batman watched intently as Hella laid out a gauzy fabric
on his worktable, and ran her fingertips over it until it glowed with runic
symbols that burned themselves into the surface with an eerie incandescence.

Jason set the witch orb in its center.

“Magick is power driven by will,” he pronounced formally. “As the
witch orb is meant to trap any ill-intentioned spirits within the webwork of
its interior, so does it hold fast the Magicks of Zatara, so ill-used by
Zatanna that the Universal Is has revoked its right of existence. We
return this power to the Cosmos from whence it came.”

He placed the three oil burners on the cloth around the orb in the same
way they had circled Selina’s feet in the JLA transporter.

“Cats were guardians in the ancient temples,” he declared. “Let
these nine who have so nobly guarded the portal between realities, between
what is and what might have been, follow this accursed Magick of Zatara to
the brink of oblivion, and there stand sentinel at the gates of existence,
that this which should have never come into being, that is hereby nullified
and expunged from existence, may ne’er have hope of rebirth or reinvention.”

He nodded to Etrigan.

Gone, Gone from World of Man,By Earth and
Hell, forever damned.Order, Chaos, Good and IllUnite in Magick and
in WillTo banish this which stilled the StringAnd so endangered
Everything.Gone, Gone, from Here and NowThat which crossed the
cosmic Tao;Never shalt thou be again,So speaks the Demon Etrigan.

Jason wordlessly gathered up the cloth and its contents and flung it into
the vortex. Hella waved her arm abruptly, and the vortex collapsed to
the size of a manhole… to a teacup… to a thimble… to a pinhead… and then
nothing.

Superman let out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding. And
Jason turned calmly to Batman.

“You may rest easy tonight, Bruce,” he said flatly. “There is no more
magick in your house.”

“There won’t be once you take this back with you,” Batman croaked,
holding out a small silver object.

“The moonstone ring I gave Selina,” Jason noted coldly, eying it without
making any move to take it.

Batman grunted, and Etrigan took the ring and withdrew with Hella to the
far side of the cave. There was a sharp snap as Superman closed his
JLA communicator.

“She was onstage,” he announced. “There was an elephant supposed to
vanish. It didn’t.”

“I won’t lose sleep over it,” Batman growled.

“Nor will I,” Jason affirmed. “Nor, I expect, will Selina.”

“I wish I could be so sure,” Clark said resignedly. “How exactly is
what we did any different than the inner League’s transgressions, hm?
You’re both sleeping fine tonight because we ‘had a good reason,’ because we
were saving the world? Zatanna had it coming, I guess you figure, like
they decided Dr. Light had it coming. How are we different, Jason?
Bruce? Tell me.”

“We didn’t decide anything,
Superman. We made no judgment about Zatanna’s fitness to wield power,
even though her abuse of it brought us all to the brink of extinction.
The Universe itself determined that her abilities should not exist.
And even at that, it was not a judgment or punishment, it was an immune
response.”

“Jason, Selina used magic to strip away Zatanna’s powers.”

“If you break your leg, Superman, a doctor will set it so the bones may
mend properly, but it is the body itself, not the doctor, which does the
actual healing. All we did was set the leg so the Universe might heal
itself. Selina placed antennae so the magicks could do what they were
meant to without being pulled off course by Lex Luthor. She did not
wield magic herself—except perhaps—well, not really,” he broke off chuckling
at some private joke.

“Except?” Batman asked archly.

“Except perhaps?” Superman prompted.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Jason laughed.
“It’s just that when she returned, she was, eh, ‘ranting,’ I guess you would
call it, rather heatedly, about Zatanna’s future sans powers. Paying
$85 for a haircut and having it ruined, etc. It’s simply that, to a
magic-user, to emote in such a fashion when she hates Zatanna so
passionately—well, magick, as I said, is driven by will and… Let’s
just say the ‘Turtle Spirit Indian Casino in Bottleneck, North Dakota’ was
the most frightfully gleeful hexing incantation I’ve heard since the Red
Witch of Eirog got drunk on brandywine.”

In the corner of the Wayne bedroom, beneath the curio packed with cat
figurines, Selina sat at her vanity studiously brushing her hair.
Bruce came up behind her and met her eyes in the mirror.

“That’s three hours, Kitten.
Even Whiskers is impressed. Grooming on that scale, I imagine even
Bast sits up and takes notice.”

“Just reassuring myself that it’s still long,” she said.

His lip twitched.

“It’s long, and it’s lovely. Now
put down the brush, please.”

She did and turned to face him, smiling sadly, as he sat opposite her, on
the edge of the bed.

“You had a rough day,” he noted. “I know the goggles, and the hair,
and the black…” he gestured with his hand in a pointless twirling
motion, a helpless man stymied for words about a woman’s clothing.

“The zipup-guttertrash-bikerchick outfit,” Selina pronounced, like Poison
Ivy rattling off the formal Latin name of an obscure strain of ragweed.

“No,
that I got past,” he said lightly. “Considering everything else that was at
stake.”

“Well
that’s the creepiest anomaly so far,” she replied, raising her eyebrow.
“You’re okay with it? We can start inviting Jason over for
afternoon tea and weekly séances?”

He grunted.

She smirked.

And for the first time in days, something
within the walls of Wayne Manor actually felt normal.

“Not the magic,” Bruce said seriously.
“The part that killed me was standing on the sideline while you were in
there, in danger. Selina, it was—Everything that I’ve—Since we
started, you and I, every fear that I—damnit.”

“Let me try,” she interjected with a
knowing smile. “Bruce, I can’t get to sleep when I know you’re out
there battling Joker. There. I’ve said it. I’m cool with
everything else Bat, but when Joker’s involved, I can’t quite make my peace
with it. But what can you do, it goes with the package.”

He grunted.

“Well anyway,” he said, an
uncharacteristic hesitation in his manner, “It won’t be a regular
occurrence. As you’ve said yourself, many times, the ‘hero thing’
really isn’t ‘your kink’…”

After an Owlman, twin Dr. Luthors, the Rydbergii Lounge, 5 alternate
Batmen and an engagement ring, Selina was able to control her smirk.
Bruce struggled on.

“It did seem like, after all you went through to ‘steal the necklace,’
you should wind up with something… tangible.” He reached behind his
back, producing a long, flat box in familiar, but worn, red leather with
gold leaf trim.

Selina reached out and touched the top of the box tentatively with a
fingertip, running her finger lightly across the slight scratches in the
leather and looking questioningly at Bruce.

“Take it,” he urged, uncertainly, after a strained moment. “It’s
‘your kink,’” he added, in a surer, deeper gravel.

She managed a timidly naughty grin, took the box into her lap and, with
a final glance at Bruce, opened it.

“Oh my-meow-my… oh…” she breathed.

“Canary diamonds,” Bruce pointed out.
“Surrounded by white. It’s, the setting might be, I don’t know, kind
of old-fashioned. It was my grandmother’s. But it’s so close to
what you described—”

“It’s perfect,” Selina said simply.

“It’s yours. They would all be yours if I had—if
I… There are emeralds too, from some Aunt Elena, color of your eyes.
If I was able to—”

“Let’s not do that,” Selina interrupted softly. “If this, if that,
if I, if you… This whole thing has been too many what-ifs. We are what
we are. It was true then,” she pointed superficially at the necklace.
“It’s true now. It works in its way, the occasional alternate reality
Justice League and Joker-patrol sleepless night not withstanding.”

He smiled sadly, then reluctantly grunted. Selina touched her
finger to the largest diamond in the necklace and continued.

“It is beautiful, Bruce—purrrrrrfect
in fact,” she rolled out the word in a luxurious burr, clearly for his
pleasure as much as hers, then she resumed a less-feline manner. “But
stunning as this necklace is, what I really need is to get away for a while.
From this house, from Gotham, from all of it.”

He reached into his pocket and wordlessly pulled out a slip of paper.

“Wayne One is fueling up now,” he said
crisply. “Xanadu has Bungalow 4 waiting for you and plenty of pickled
ginger on hand to make your special martinis. You can look forward to
two weeks of continuous pampering on a level few women in the world have
ever experienced.”

Selina burst out laughing.

“You don’t do anything by halves, do
you, Stud?” she purred through merry chuckles, then breathed deeply.
“I do appreciate the gesture, Bruce; really I do. Appealing as the
thought is of a cream and honey wrap, followed by a hot stone massage or
crystal or diamonds or whatever they’re using this month, and then a little
snack of those giant raspberries… delicious as that all sounds, what I
really want more than anything is a few days of you.”

Bruce shifted his finger, revealing a second slip of paper folded behind
the first.

“I can’t leave Gotham for two weeks,
but I’ll come for the first few days, get you settled in.”

“…”

She breathed.

“Feel free to meow or something,” Bruce said brusquely.

“…”

She stared.

“Selina?”

“Meow,” she blurted as if expelling a
long-held breath. “Wow… You are full of surprises.”

“Consider it a new ‘Kitten Protocol,’”
he twitched. “To save the sweaters.”